Learning so often starts from the home and is---if you will--- “homemade.” So often in Jim’s and my life with Charlie, we’ve heard about “this wonderful expert” or “this great school or program,” and that there’s a waiting list a mile long for Charlie even to be considered (only to be rejected). So often we’ve been left to feel, now what do we do?

And every time the answer’s been, have them add his name to the mile-long list and, in the mean time, we’ll just have to do it ourselves.

Over the years (Charlie was born in 1997 and diagnosed with autism in 1999), Jim and I have learned quite a bit about how to teach Charlie. There’s no miracles here, just good old-fashioned hard work mixed in with what we’ve learned about Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), speech therapy, occupational therapy, and more. We’ve been able to teach Charlie in no small part because we’ve been  taught by some great teachers ourselves, such as Charlie’s first speech therapist and, too, Charlie himself. Charlie often learns in ways that are not at all “typical” or “expected: There is an art to teaching him, and Jim and I have made ourselves devoted students of it.

The links on this page are about this art, this “homemade teaching”: how Jim taught Charlie to ride a bike; how a great piano teacher taught Charlie to play the piano and trained me to teach, too; I’ll also be adding links about how we taught Charlie to handle the barber, the dentist, the supermarket, to type a little on the computer.  There’s nothing definitive or scientific about what we’ve done to teach Charlie to do all these things. There’s been lots of sweat and tears shed, lots of mistakes and setbacks, and lots of clapping, cheers and, always, love.

I hope the links below can be somewhat helpful. Some of the posts contain actual suggestions for teaching a child, while others are more about the efforts and the spirit that one puts into that teaching, and that make teaching an art; they are about that extra “something” that manuals and textbooks about teaching an autistic child don’t always capture. Doing it yourself the “homemade”* way is empowering, for parents who feel like they’re at the mercy of those experts (and those waiting lists) and for the child her or himself who learns that most valuable lesson: “I can do it!”

Riding a bike: We Ride Bikes Together by Jim Fisher

                          The freedom of movement from riding a bike

*In talking about “homemade” learning, I’m also referring to what is called the “DIY/handmade” movement, described by one source as “the new wave of craft capturing the attention of the nation.” I’m no maker selling handmade goods on Etsy (though very much a fan). We have spent considerable time cutting up magazines and construction paper to make flash cards for Charlie, and, in the days when he was on the gluten-free casein-free diet, my baking and cooking skills were put to the test; as I wrote at the top of this page, something of the handmade or “homemade” (as Jim likes to say) spirit infuses much of our life with Charlie.

Playing the piano and cello: First lessons

Charlie’s 1st piano teacher can be found at Innovative Piano

Taking Charlie to the dentist and teaching him to brush his teeth